Braselton, GA. The final round of the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge was held during the famed Petit Le Mans weekend at Road Atlanta. Our sponsors at Fuse Lenses came out in full force for the weekend. They set up a booth in the fan village where they gave away prizes, cut some custom lenses and had a DJ entertaining the fans. Overall, we’d say it was a very successful season end party. Unfortunately for the #52 car, the race ended prematurely. Jay and teammate Mark Pombo were set to take the #52 to victory lane at Mark’s home track outside of Atlanta. Family and friends were all out to support the team for the final race. Jay qualified the car in 11th just behind teammates in the #37 and #73 who qualified 9th and 10th respectively. Being mid-pack was fine because it was a 2 hour race and Mark could still bring it home for the win after the driver change. This was his home track so that would hopefully be to our advantage. Just when Jay had gotten the car all the way up to 5th place and was preparing to turn the car over to Mark at the one hour mark, a slight mistake caused the car to spin coming out of turn 1 where it met the tire wall in a terrible crash. This brought out a full course caution and unfortunately ended the race for our #52. Jay came out unscathed thanks to a very well built and safe car provided by the MINI JCW race team.
The #52 car was also sporting a new special livery for the weekend. In honor of a dear friend that we lost to breast cancer a week before, we put a pink ribbon on the roof of the car with her name, Carrie Obenrader. She was only 40 years old when she passed away. Being that October is breast cancer awareness month, the other cars on the team put a small pink ribbon on the sides of their cars as well. Fuse Lenses also took part in bringing awareness to the cause by donating $5 for every pair of pink Bella Lenses that they sold during the month of October.
It was a sad ending to the season because the team worked so hard to give us the best possible car around. Also due to some questionable rulings throughout the season, the MINI JCW team would miss out on a driver’s championship and manufacturer championship. However disappointing it was, the team is still strong. You won’t find more dedicated crew members in the paddock than those at the MINI JCW team. We are ready to start 2018 strong!